United States declares ivory-beaked woodpecker extinct

After spending years and millions of dollars looking for it, The United States has lost hope of locating 23 birds, fish and other species and has declared them extinct.

Federal wildlife authorities said on Wednesday that eleven birds, eight freshwater mussels, two fish, a bat and a plant should be declared extinct and removed from the endangered species list. Among them are the ivory-billed woodpecker, which was the largest woodpecker in northern Mexico; Hawaiian Bird O’o from Kauai; and the flat pigtoe, which was a freshwater mussel.

“Since climate change and the loss of natural spaces are pushing more and more species to the brink [de la extinción]Now is the time to launch proactive, collaborative and innovative initiatives to save America’s wildlife. “ He said Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, in a press release.

Ivory-billed woodpeckers were first suspected of being extinct in the last century, but were then sighted again in Arkansas in 2004. Since then, the woodpecker has not been seen again, despite a mission from the Service. US federal. 1.1 million to locate and recover birds.

The ivory-billed woodpecker is not the first of its kind to disappear. Mexico’s Imperial Peak, which was once the tallest in the world, hasn’t been seen since the 1950s.

Pollution, human encroachment on habitats and climate change ravage wildlife around the world. In 2019, nearly 3 billion fewer adult birds flew in the skies of the United States and Canada compared to 1970, a Cornell University study found. Today, North America’s bird population is less than two-thirds of what it was five decades ago, with prairie and coastal birds experiencing the largest declines.